


Pack is the Family We Find for Ourselves

by signifying_nothing



Category: K-pop, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Gender Fuckery, Hybrid!AU, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Violence, yoongi's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 10:08:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6606841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signifying_nothing/pseuds/signifying_nothing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in a world where their species is being pushed down to the ground, they make an escape, and things are no less confusing or complicated than they were before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pack is the Family We Find for Ourselves

**Author's Note:**

> what. i just wanted to write hybrid!namjoon and yoongi porn, what the fuck is this. what. there's not even proper smut in this, i'm so.  
> :|

_And now, in national news: violence broke out at a protest in Seoul this morning while hybrid activists were attempting to peacefully protest the new laws presented by the government that would require they register themselves and obtain a license to work, in addition to the recent and suspicious death of Jackson Wang, an outspoken activist for hybrid rights here in Korea. This happens only days after accusations of abuse at a hybrid-focused charter school, where several teenage students have come forward to accuse the staff of assault and sexual abuse._

“ _This violence has got to stop,” says activist Park Jinyoung, one of the few humans among the group protesting. “This isn't the dark ages, they have rights just like we do and we can't treat them like animals. Licenses? To what, exist? There's no reason for any of this legislation to be passed, there's no reason for it at all._

_They're not dangerous._

_They're not animals.”_

_~_

It was nearly impossible to hide being a hybrid for longer than a passing glance, even if you wanted to. The tail, the ears, the claws gave it all away. Of course, all of those could be surgically removed, but the side effects were devastating, especially for adults. Not that Yoongi ever would have considered doing such a thing to his body. His body was a fucking temple, thank you, and he liked it just the way it was.

Yoongi was hybrid and proud. He claimed his tiny space in government project housing with the rest of the poverty-ridden schmucks who had the misfortune of being disadvantaged or uneducated or born with animal traits they couldn't hide, he worked his thankless job sorting recycling and came home smelling like bleach with a tiny bag of interestingly colored glass every day. He wasn't ashamed of himself.

He pushed open the door to his studio apartment and set down the bag, desperate to get in the shower. The water smelled like metal and tinted the bottom of the tub with copper but he had a nice body wash and conditioner that would hopefully save his skin and hair from the abrasive cleaner they had to use when they left the facility. It was better than smelling like stale beer and rotten milk, but he hated how stiff and dry it left his skin, how brittle it made his hair and fur. Ducking down beside the tub, he grabbed for a bath bomb: a gift from a friend for his birthday last year. Taehyung had gotten fucking lucky, somehow—hooked up with this _gorgeous_ human who was stupidly in love with him and he sent Yoongi boxes every now and again of things like bath bombs, gift cards to grocery stores and clothing places he liked, bottles of homemade Kahlua and stupid shit like razors, tooth brushes, a new set of sheets. It wasn't that Yoongi didn't appreciate everything Taehyung sent him. They'd been friends a long time, but sometimes he thought it'd be nicer for the asshole to just stop by, so Yoongi could actually see him for the first time in... Who knew. A year? Ish?

With a heavy sigh, Yoongi dropped the bomb into the tub and watched the water swirl violet and fragrant. He pulled off his clothes, pale blue shirt and jeans splattered with bleach, and dropped them into his hamper. There was a laundry room down the hall, but he didn't go there unless it was first thing in the morning. He hated being caught by other people. There were a lot of humans in this building, and some of them weren't too keen on hybrids though Yoongi had no idea why. They were all in the same fucking leaky-ass boat, they might as well get along so they didn't sink any _faster._

“Sides, s'not like I asked to be born,” he grumbled, scratching at the bottom of his ear. He looked at himself in the mirror, sighed in disgust. He didn't like his body, didn't like the almost girlish shape or the thinness of his waist. He was too skinny. He was too skinny, and his belly was soft, and his dark hair was getting long but he didn't want to get it cut. It made him feel safe, like a shield or something. Taehyung would laugh.

He stayed in the bath too long. He stayed in the bath too long but his skin smelled like violets and all of the tension had bled out of his aching back and thighs. He was getting prune-y by the time he crawled out, toweled off, blow-dried his tail and hair. If Taehyung had still been living across the hall Yoongi might have gone to visit him, but since a human had moved in there and made it clear in no uncertain terms that he thought Yoongi was some kind of freak, well.

Yoongi heaved a sigh and went out into the main room, walking to the large windows and staring out into the district he lived in. It was... Filthy, honestly. Smoky, grimy, but it was his. The narrow streets and ancient brick, the gutters and rooftops, the orange sun blazing over the skyline at the center of the city, with it's glass and steel structures seeming to touch the sky.

“Goodnight, world,” Yoongi said, his voice low. _Goodnight, world_ and he made his way to his bed. He had to be up to go to work the next morning at four and he was exhausted; he might as well get some good sleep before he went and made another mess of himself.

~

_In local news, Lee Jaehwan was found dead in his home this morning, victim of a gunshot would to the head. The hybrid, a local business owner, was in the process of organizing a shelter for hybrid youth in the borough where he lived. There had been backlash from the human community at large, despite the fact that his intentions were made very clear in this interview earlier in the year._

“ _More than sixty percent of the homeless population in this city are hybrid teens. Most shelters won't take them, you know, because they're more work to care for than human teens, and that's—they can't help that, that's just the way of things. I'm hoping that having this facility open to them will lead to less feral youth, and allow them to have a safe place to call home when home isn't safe anymore.”_

_Lee was twenty-seven. He is survived by his husband, Jung Taekwoon, and their son, Lee Jinhwan. Jung Taekwoon refused comment at the time of this interview._

~

Unrest between the hybrids and humans was not that uncommon. They split the population sixty-five to thirty-five, and most humans were still convinced that hybrids were dumb animals, the results of experimentation some sixty or seventy years ago where animal DNA got spliced into human DNA and created the first generation of hybrids. It wouldn't have been such a big deal, except that genetically, hybrids and humans were still able to breed, and hybrids could breed with other hybrids, obviously. So that was a thing that happened, and Yoongi, whose parents had both been hybrids of the _felidae_ variety, had always taught their son that _those who fight and run away will live to fight another day._ It had never occurred to Yoongi to think of himself as cowardly. He just chose his battles wisely, and his battle that day happened to be one that was distinctly to his disadvantage: a bunch of humans showing up at the recycling plant, where the first shift had just gotten out, humans and hybrids and half-bloods alike. The tension was thick and no one seemed ready to make a move. Yoongi felt, more than saw, Jung Hoseok baring his teeth in readiness. Hoseok was fearless and Yoongi thought he was a fucking idiot, honestly, but just then he appreciated the hunch of his shoulders, just how far back his lips pulled to expose his somewhat monstrous teeth. Fucking _hyaenidae._

Hoseok wasn't afraid but Yoongi was, and as the bottle sailed through the air, the t-shirt stuffed into it ablaze, he turned to run.

_Fucking freaks!_

The bottle landed not fifteen feet from him and Yoongi yelped, fell to the ground, rolled, and attempted to get up again but another bottle landed, another, and everyone was screaming, threats of violence and the sound of hate bubbling up all around, from every direction.

Yoongi had never thought of himself as a coward, but he was afraid of violence. He was afraid of what people would do to one another, what they would do to him. He'd been alone since he was fifteen, he knew how the game was played. His parents had been murdered during a protest and Yoongi knew. He _knew_ what happened to people like him when humans put their hands on them.

“Yoongi! Yoongi, come on!”

Hoseok. Hoseok, with his bared teeth and fierce expression, his ears straight up and the line of hair down his back positively rigid with agitation and aggression.

“Come _on!_ ”

Yoongi scrambled up, cut his hands on the tarmac and broken glass as he ran towards Hoseok and the others with him—he recognized Jeongguk, Seokjin, and some human he'd never met—and his ears started to ring when something exploded. He stumbled and fell, disoriented, tail straight out in an attempt to keep balance as Hoseok grabbed him by the arm and dragged him along.

Yoongi glanced back to see the recycling facility going up in flames.

_What... What happened?_

~

Yoongi's parents had been some sort of _felidae._ Hoseok was clearly _hyaenidae,_ but Jeongguk was pure-bred _gulo gulo,_ a wolverine, and it showed in how aggressively he stalked the side of the room, teeth bared and hands curled into claws. His ears were softly triangular and his eyes were hard and occasionally he let out a sound so wild it had the rest of them flinching down in self-preservation. Well. All of them except for Seokjin.

“Sit _down,_ Jeon Jeongguk,” he snarled, getting up and baring his own teeth. “Before I make you. You need to _calm down._ ”

“They were there to kill us!” Jeongguk snapped, and Yoongi felt himself trying to get smaller, somehow. Seokjin was a mix, too, but anyone worth their salt knew he was more than half _ursas arctos_ and more than likely he was full kodiak bear and he scared the shit out of Yoongi and anyone else with any goddamned sense in their heads.

“We should count ourselves lucky they didn't,” he replied, and Jeongguk sneered.

“This time.”

“Jeon Jeongguk!”

“Would you two shut the _fuck up,_ ” Hoseok snarled, and Yoongi squeezed his eyes closed. He'd never had to deal with so much aggression in such a tight space. It was... It was terrifying, to be frank. Taehyung had been mostly _mellivora capensis,_ but he'd never been aggressive, at least not towards Yoongi. The violence from the humans had been terrifying enough; he didn't need the people he should be able to trust getting violent, too.

“Guys,” came the voice of the man Yoongi didn't know. “Guys, you need to calm down, okay? Getting aggressive isn't gonna help.”

“The fuck would you know about it,” Jeongguk asked, his temper focused on the stranger, with his dark eyes and silver hair. “You're a fucking human.”

“I guess I look like one, right? I'm only half. But whether or not I'm human's got absolutely nothing to do with it. We have to calm down. If this is... What I think it is, then we need to be trying to make a plan to get the hell out of here, instead of arguing and posturing.”

“Why?” Hoseok asked, and the man turned to look at him.

“Because I think shit's finally hitting the fan and if we don't want to be here when it does, we have to go.”

“What?”

“It's been—there's this. Look. Hoseok, you know I spend a lot of time in the city center, that's where most of my work gets done, and they've been trying to pass legislation—”

“What the fuck does legislation have to do with any of this?”

“Shut _up,_ Jeongguk!”

Legislation, laws. It was all over Yoongi's head. He hadn't even graduated from high school, most of them hadn't. Couldn't. No one would take the extra time to teach a hybrid, whose brains worked differently from a humans, who had trouble with advanced logical and abstract concepts. His head was spinning just thinking about what the stranger was saying. Registration. DNA testing.

“— and we have to think about leaving the city to go somewhere else.”

“What about Taehyung,” Yoongi said, and all eyes on the room turned to focus on him. He swallowed hard, hating how they could all see him, could surely see how fucking _afraid_ he was. “I'm not going anywhere without Taehyung.”

“He's got his human now, what the fuck does he need us for,” Jeongguk asked, his voice rough and bitter. It wasn't a secret that Jeongguk had pined for Taehyung but the two of them had never been able to reconcile around the aggression present in their species. They should have been able to love one another but Jeongguk had never backed down and Taehyung had been unable to stop himself from rising to the challenge but it was Jeongguk's fault as much as it was Taehyungs and how _dare he._ Yoongi felt vitriol rising up in his throat and opened his mouth to spit it out.

“They want to register us,” the stranger said, and Yoongi swallowed all the acid in his throat. “They want us to have numbers. They want us collared. They want us to go back to the fucking dark ages and I don't know about you but I'm not sticking around for it.” He turned to look at Yoongi, who felt small and wound up tight like a spring ready to break. “So if you want to get your friend, go get him. Go get him, get your shit, and get ready to leave because I'm not staying.”

“You're half,” Seokjin said, sounding as though all of the wind had been knocked out of him as he collapsed to a chair. “You're only half.”

“Half is enough,” he said, raking a hand through his hair and at this angle Yoongi could see his claws, could see that no, he wasn't fully human at all. Only half. Only barely enough to pass. “It's like they forgot the fucking riots and the fighting and now...”

“Namjoon,” Hoseok said, his voice uncharacteristically soft.

“We need to go,” Namjoon said, rubbing the back of his neck. “We need to get our shit, and we need to go. Get the people closest to you to come, if they will. The sooner we're out of city limits the safer we'll be.”

“Who knows what the fuck is out there,” Jeongguk said, his voice weak.

“I don't,” Namjoon replied, and Yoongi felt his chest clench. “But I know I don't want to be locked in with whatever's gonna happen in here.”

~

_There is growing unrest in the capital today, as protesters enter the third day of their sit-in at the Capitol building. Most of the protesters are hybrids, ranging in age from small children to older adults, most of whom spend the days educating the younger people and delegate jobs like getting donated water bottles passed out, making sure everyone has food._

“ _This isn't stopping,” says Kim Daeil, who proudly wears a t-shirt with_ acinonyx jubatus _emblazoned across it. His hybrid blood, he declared when we asked. “We have rights, too. We're not asking anyone to give anything up—just to include us. We're here, too. We deserve the right to live.”_

~

Yoongi could pass as a human, if he tried. He had to stuff his ears into a beanie, wrap his tail around his waist and file down his nails but he could pass as a human if he tried and that was the only way he made it to where Taehyung lived now—keeping his head down, off the beaten path, all the way to the nice, small house in the suburbs where Taehyung lived with his human, Jimin.

He knocked gently and when the door opened it was Jimin on the other side and Yoongi felt a piercing of fear in his throat. “Is,” he managed. “Is T-Taehyung.”

“Yoongi,” Jimin said, his eyes wide. “You're Yoongi, aren't you? God, get _in_ here,” Jimin yanked him inside and closed the door, locked it. “Come on, he's downstairs—god he's been worried sick since we saw the news, he'll be so glad you're okay.”

Yoongi nodded, and when the basement door opened and there was Taehyung, smelling like the body wash he loved so much and looking so fucking relieved and beautiful and _alive_ that Yoongi might have passed out from all the oxygen he took in with his sigh of relief.

“Yoongi,” he said, and Yoongi fell into his arms, trembling. “Oh my god, I was so—you're okay, oh god you're okay, I thought—when they said it burned down I thought—”

“I'm leaving,” he said, his cheek in Taehyung's hair and neck. “I'm leaving. I can't stay. I can't. They're talking about. About collars, and registration and, and they're talking about what fucking _freaks_ we are and I'm scared, I can't—”

“Yoongi,” Taehyung pushed him back enough just to look into his eyes. “Yoongi you don't have to go by yourself, you don't, you can stay here, with me and Jimin, it'll be okay, I promise—”

“They'll come for you too,” Yoongi whispered. “You, and Jimin, because he's with you. They'll come for you, Taehyung god, please don't, just come with me, please. Bring him, bring Jimin, please. Please just don't _stay_ here.”

Yoongi left their house with as much non-perishable food as he could carry. One of Jimin's tents, an extra tarp. Taehyung took the card with the coordinates on it but wouldn't come, not yet. He wasn't going to let Yoongi go empty-handed, though. He never did.

~

_Lee Hongbin, a human who has been driving a truck of donated food to the protesters in the capital, was shot and killed in that truck this morning. Cha Hakyeon, his hybrid partner, was injured in the crash and is in critical condition tonight._

~

In the end, they were the only five that went. They left in the cover of night, in Seokjin's truck. Hoseok sat in the front seat while Yoongi sat in the back with Namjoon; Jeongguk opted to ride in the bed, as he liked to have open space to himself and for a while it was uncomfortable because Yoongi didn't know Namjoon, didn't know him at all, and...

“ _Lycaon pictus,_ ” Namjoon said in the dark of the back seat, his voice almost a whisper, and Yoongi jerked a bit.

“What?”

“You were trying to figure out how to ask, right? _Lycaon pictus._ African wild dog, my mother's side.”

“Oh,” Yoongi flushed with embarrassment. “Oh, I didn't. I mean I wasn't trying to—”

“I know there's some taboo thing, about asking,” Namjoon smiled a little. “But if you're curious, you should ask. I don't mind.”

Yoongi hesitated, tried to think of something intelligent to say. Namjoon was... Well. He'd been nothing less than a champion over the last few days, dealing with the four of them being aggressive and frightened, working to make sure they had the supplies they needed to survive on their own for a while without succumbing to their wild instincts. He was impressed, but also afraid. It was strange for someone to be so good at that kind of thing, organizing animals.

“I'm a cat,” he said intelligently, immediately wanting to hit his head into the window until the glass broke.

“I can tell,” Namjoon replied. “Not sure what kind, though?”

“Me neither,” he admitted, feeling stupid and stiff and wishing he could melt into the ground. Namjoon was _smart_ and he could handle aggressive predators and god, he just. He made Yoongi feel like a fucking idiot, is what he did, and what was worse was that Yoongi didn't even really mind all that much because part of his brain was taken up by _wow, what great mating material!_ Of all the fucking things.

“It's okay to be scared, you know,” Namjoon said, and Yoongi swallowed. He'd said goodbye to his shitty little studio. He'd packed his bath bombs, though god knew why. His nice sheets from Taehyung. Toothbrushes, toothpaste, washcloths, soap, deodorant, emergency shots of suppressants as well as the daily dose pills. A first-aid box. The more rugged clothing from his closet. He'd readied himself as much as he could but he was still so scared and it bothered him that Namjoon could sense it when no one else could.

“I'm not scared.”

“Liar~” Namjoon murmured, and Yoongi nearly squawked as Namjoon wrapped an arm over his shoulders and moved to lay down across the back seat, bringing Yoongi with him. “Come on. Get some sleep.”

“I can sleep sitting up!” he hissed, painfully aware of the fact that Hoseok was asleep in the front seat, and Seokjin was absorbed in driving, painfully aware of the warmth Namjoon was radiating, the slight smell in his skin that made Yoongi want to press his legs together.

“This is more comfortable though, right?”

...It was.

It was, and Yoongi sighed, let his head rest on Namjoon's shoulder and chest and closed his eyes, willed all of the tension to leave his body. He just wanted to get some sleep. He just... Wanted to feel safe for the first time in a week and a half, and rest.

~

They drove until the truck ran out of gas, and the gasoline containers in the bed were empty. Seokjin remarked how lucky they were to have made it so far, and Jeongguk made some snide comment about how unlucky it was that they'd have to walk to where they were going, _wherever the fuck that is._

For the first few nights, Hoseok and Seokjin put together a small fire. Hoseok disappeared into the woods and came back with a few dead rabbits in his hand, their necks snapped. Yoongi fought not to be sick as he and Seokjin made short work of skinning, gutting, and ripping them into pieces to be stuck onto sticks and roasted over the warm heat.

Despite himself, Yoongi took one of those skewers when it was offered, comforted by the warmth of Seokjins' arm slung around his shoulder. “Haven't you ever been camping?” he asked, and Yoongi shook his head: he'd never been out of the city before. Seokjin offered him a familial smile, squeezing his narrow shoulders. “Don't worry, we'll teach you. Hoseok'n me are pretty good at this surviving thing.”

Hot, cooked wild rabbit certainly tasted better than cold, canned tuna.

~

Yoongi was alone, when it happened. He felt his body getting hot earlier in the days before, knew he was getting close to heat and needed to take an emergency dose of the suppressants he'd brought with him. He was trying to ration out the pills, one every three days, but all it did was fuck with his system and he wanted to figure it out, fix it, but he hadn't had the time. Hoseok had begun to breathe deeply around him, eyebrow cocked, and Jeongguk steered clear of him completely, looking disgusted but _fuck_ him, it wasn't Yoongi's fault he was _felidae_ and therefore subject to the tragedies of his fucking biology.

So when he was finally alone at the camping sight they were staying at until Seokjin's left knee stopped fighting his brace, he pulled out one of the syringes and eased it into his arm with a practiced slide.

Injected suppressants were a bit like a flu shot, in that they made the symptoms worse before they went away. Yoongi panted softly in the tent, laid out half-naked on the dirty material with his dirty skin and felt absolutely vile for so many reasons he couldn't count, refusing to reach between his legs and give himself some relief, because he didn't want to hear it from the others about what a mess he'd ma—

Yoongi heard a low, rippling growl from outside the tent and swallowed hard. The door to the tent was unzipped and through it he could see the monstrous form of a wolf, or a feral wolfdog, penis unsheathed. For a few long moments they just stared at one another, animal to animal and Yoongi swallowed hard, holding his breath and when the beast took steps closer, he did the only thing he could think of: he screamed, loud and long and feline. The canine leapt closer, Yoongi screamed again, threw up an arm to protect his face and wailed when it bit, when it bit in and clenched down and it's teeth sank into Yoongi's pale skin. He clenched his legs closed tight and tried to curl in on himself. He had to _protect himself._

Yoongi wasn't sure who had pulled the beast off of his clothed form. Maybe Jeongguk, maybe Seokjin. He did know that it was Namjoon who cradled him. Namjoon who brought him to the riverside to wash, clean and bandage the savage bite wounds on his arm. Namjoon, who let Yoongi have a moment of weakness and weep into his shoulder like some kind of frightened child and promised to never speak a word of it. Namjoon, who put the empty syringe back in Yoongi's bag without once asking what it was, even as Hoseok watched with dark, suspicious eyes.

~

_In other news, the recent pro-registration legislation has been passed by congress. This lead to an eruption of violent protests across the country today, confrontations between humans and hybrids coming to a head. Most altercations have left humans in critical condition while their assaulters disappear into the hybrid community, which has been notoriously tight-lipped about any recent outbreaks of violence. The gates to the Seoul Wildtown have been closed to humans since last Wednesday, when Jung Taekwoon spoke out for the first time since the murder of his husband, hybrid activist Lee Jaehwan._

“ _This is nothing more than the result of human violence against hybrids. You can't really be surprised by any of this, can you? You don't get to treat us like animals and then expect us not to act like animals when you come for our communities, for our families, for us.”_

~

Jeongguk had started to disappear for hours at a time. He always came back, but sometimes his mouth was bloody or his shirt was smeared with filth and he looked more wild than any of them. Yoongi had never been so afraid of a single person before. There were hybrids who went feral. Whether from hunger or thirst or anger, there were hybrids who went feral and Yoongi didn't want to be on the receiving end of whatever violence Jeongguk was going to unleash. He was dangerous enough as it was. It would be worse when his animal instinct took over his humanity.

“He's gonna be the first to leave,” Namjoon said quietly, shrugging his backpack onto his shoulders as Jeongguk faded into the wildlife. “He's gonna leave.”

“No he won't,” Yoongi whispered, already so off-kilter that the thought of one of their company leaving him was enough to make him panic. “Don't say that.”

Namjoon didn't say it again, but it took two more weeks of walking, sleeping crowded in a tent and aggressive sniping before they woke up one morning and Jeongguk was gone and despite all of their efforts, he couldn't be found. Even Hoseok's sense of smell couldn't find where he'd disappeared to.

Yoongi and Seokjin trailed behind Hoseok and Namjoon when they finally started walking again. They held hands and said nothing, because neither of them could bring themselves to point out that the other was crying, as it would draw attention to their own tears.

~

“There it is,” Namjoon said, pointing up to a collection of houses on the side of the mountain just barely visible through the density of the trees. “That's where we're going.”

“What is that?” Seokjin asked, and Yoongi nodded, turning to look at Namjoon.

“It used to be an all-hybrid village,” Namjoon said. “It's been empty for a while now, with the bigger cities and stuff, but. My parents used to talk about it, that's... How I knew it was here. Mom always wanted to come back, you know?”

Yoongi said nothing as they walked, trudged. Yoongi felt disgusting, more disgusting than he ever did when he worked in the recycling plant because at least then he got washed in bleach after every shift. He got to use his bath bombs and pretend to spoil himself. They were still sitting in his backpack. He'd refused to drop them, no matter how hard the hiking, how heavy his bag felt, though it lightened and got more weighted between eating cans of tuna and refilling water bottles with cool brown river water. But he still missed smelling like violets, he missed being clean.

Now he just smelled like sweat and stone and pine sap, his hair a lank and heavy mess, his pale skin mottled with dirt. It was pointless to try and get clean in a river so close to their goal, so they hadn't bothered and by the time the four of them reached the top of the path, passed through the somewhat shinto-style gate to the village, Yoongi was desperately ready for a bath and sleep on anything that wasn't a sleeping bag on the ground.

“Lets check it out,” Hoseok said, naturally suspicious. Seokjin nodded and they took one side, leaving Yoongi and Namjoon to take the other.

“It looks like they all just... Left,” Yoongi said as they pushed open the door of one building, almost like a _tiny home_ Yoongi had read about on the internet when he had the time to go to the library. He hadn't had time for that in a long while. “There's nothing here.”

That wasn't true. There were empty jars, blankets piled neatly in closets, some clothes folded in cabinets and a few books scattered on mostly empty shelves. Someone had left in a hurry and taken only the essentials with them, but it wasn't _empty._ Frozen in time, maybe.

“Mm,” Namjoon nodded, pushing at furnishings, turning on faucets. “But look. Water's still working. Good, that means the well is functioning. We're gonna be fine, Yoongi,” Namjoon said. Yoongi turned to look at him, the six feet of distance not enough to keep him from seeing the sparkle of tears in the corner of Namjoon's eyes. Yoongi felt his heart fall into his stomach. He'd been so busy being afraid that he'd forgotten. Namjoon was afraid, too. He'd been nearly able to taste it when Namjoon had held his arm under the running water, had wrapped the bitewounds and said nothing about the smeared mess on Yoongi's jeans. Namjoon had been afraid and Yoongi had been too selfish to say anything about it.

“Namjoon,” he said, and he closed the distance between them to hug the taller man as close as he dared. Dogs, as a rule, were pack animals, and he wondered how lonely Namjoon might have been feeling, how fucking lost, with a group of hybrids who had no idea what they were doing, no idea how to cooperate, no idea... How to function without getting aggressive or withdrawing or flashing teeth. With no idea how to be a real pack, not yet. But Yoongi thought they were... They were trying. It was getting better. “It's okay, Namjoon. We made it, right? We made it.”

“We made it,” Namjoon said, his voice somewhat choked. “We're okay.”

~

_A tragedy in Seoul, today. A group of young hybrids, none of whom were over the age of eighteen, were found dead on the steps of the Capitol building this morning. Since the banning of protest on the capital lawn the action has been kept outside the gates; this morning, that law violated with the bodies of six murdered teenagers._

“ _This is vile,” said chief of police Jung Yunho, who is husband to a hybrid. “There was no need for this. This is slaughter. This has to stop.”_

_The names of the youth have not been released to the public, though it is suspected that they were likely feral, and therefore easy targets of human violence. Most disturbingly, the victims all bore signs of sexual assault, and were branded with the same design, seen here. If you have any information about who may have been involved in this attack, please inform the Seoul Police Department immediately. The anonymous tip line is found at..._

~

Yoongi squatted next to Seokjin as the older man showed him how to strike a flint. “Here, you try,” he'd said, and Yoongi frowned but carefully knocked the two bits of... Of _rock,_ they looked like rock—together and yelped in surprise when sparks flew. It had been a month or so since they'd settled in the village, and Yoongi was _determined_ to figure out how to use the woodstove in the little house he'd claimed, the one with a high bed so he could look down at everything. His determination was being challenged by the flint, though; Seokjin laughed at him as he took away the tools to show him, again.

“Here, like this Yoongi, try again—” he stopped.

He stopped, and Yoongi stopped, ears straining, eyes wide. Someone was coming. Someone was _coming._ He felt the growling keen coming out of his mouth, felt his hair stand on end and his tail puff up, claws digging into the ground. He didn't like to fight. He'd never wanted to fight but god if someone had followed them, if someone was here to _hurt them—_

“Yoongi? Min Yoongi?”

Yoongi's ears tipped back in anxiety and he squinted towards the treeline, the body running towards him that he couldn't quite see until he was about thirty feet away and what he saw was the most beautiful thing he'd seen in months, aside from Namjoon's face, peaceful with sleep when he woke before him.

It was Kim Taehyung, his hair a mess, his eyes bright and his smile big enough to light up the sky as he all but threw himself against Yoongi and knocked them both to the ground, laughing and maybe crying and chattering away in some kittenish noises that the two of them had been using since... Well, since they were kittens.

“Yoongi, Yoongi, we found you, finally! Finally, god, I thought it was gonna be a _million years_ and we brought instant coffee and cream and sugar and water bottles and chapstick and _toothbrushes_ and cooking stuff like salt because who even thinks to pack _salt_ and Jimin brought _matches_ because he's a _genius_ —”

“Let him breathe for a second, Taehyung,” came a laugh and behind Taehyung Yoongi could see Park Jimin, holding the hand of a gaunt and exhausted Jeon Jeongguk.

“Jeongguk,” Seokjin's voice was strangled and Yoongi watched, his arms still full of excited Kim Taehyung, as Seokjin scrambled up and all but ran to the youngest in their group of friends, gathering him up in his arms in a hug and Yoongi's heart squeezed to see that Jeongguk, Jeongguk was hugging him back.

~

Hoseok and Namjoon came back to the five of them sitting around the fire. Hoseok dropped the birds he'd been holding, and Namjoon very nearly dropped the rabbits, eyes wide. Hoseok made a beeline for Taehyung, practically shrieking as he laughed that hyena laugh and rubbed their faces together, rubbed all over Jeongguk and Jimin, despite Jeongguk's useless, not at all genuine protests.

“Get off me,” he complained, leaning into Jimin, who smoothed his hair and kissed his forehead to soothe his ruffled feathers. “God. Why are you so excited.”

“Because you're here!” Hoseok yelled, and Seokjin reached to grab him by the back of the neck, pull him down.

“Settle down,” he said, biting gently at Hoseok's ear. “Let the kids get comfortable, okay? Go get dinner. Taehyung brought a pot and some broth, so I'll make soup, mm?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, grinning and running back to grab the birds. “Yeah!”

Yoongi looked at Namjoon and smiled, patting the ground next to him. Namjoon went to sit down, and Yoongi... Yoongi drew him in, and gave his jaw the softest of kisses, the first truly affectionate touch he'd been willing to give anyone in weeks.

~

_Jung Taekwoon was assassinated this afternoon. While attempting to negotiate the release of half-hybrid hostages from terrorist group HOMO SUPERIOR, Jung was shot in the back of the head by a human sniper, who turned himself in to the police, showing no remorse for his actions. At the time of his death, Jung had been holding his two year old son, Lee Jinhwan. The child was unharmed, but all hopes for reconciliation with the hybrid community and specifically those in Seoul Wildtown have been destroyed._

_The governor has enforced martial law; any human citizen found openly carrying weaponry will be disarmed immediately, and their homes searched for any anti-hybrid paraphernalia, upon which any and all weaponry on their property will be confiscated for the sake of public safety, following the tragic deaths of three half-hybrid teenagers on a playground outside the Wildtown lines._

“ _We have rights!” says one protestor. “Those freaks run around with their weapons and we can't even defend ourselves!”_

~

“I brought more suppressants,” Taehyung said gently, offering out the bottles and syringes to Yoongi in the little house he'd claimed for himself. “I know we're all, goin' back to the natural state and stuff, but... I thought you might need them.” Yoongi nodded mutely. His own supply of suppressants had been nearly used up, just a few more weeks worth, and while he was all for _going back to the natural state,_ he definitely didn't want the others to be caught by surprise when his heat made him irritated, frustrated, sexually desperate and furious. Especially... Especially not Namjoon.

The tender relationship they'd been building was sometimes the only thing that got Yoongi out of bed in the morning. On the nights when Namjoon stayed with him in his little home it was all that kept him asleep through the night. Yoongi was afraid of what he was feeling, but worse was the worry that his biology would somehow rush it, ruin everything. He and Namjoon... They were slowly carving spaces for one another, and the last thing Yoongi wanted was to ruin everything forever. There was already risk that his body would destroy everything just by being the way it was—he didn't need hormones to make it any worse.

“Thanks,” he said, and he meant it. “Are you sure you don't need...?”

“Nah,” Taehyung shook his head. “Me'n Jimin have it down to a science, y'know? N'Jeongguk, he's always down to _get down,_ so it's not a big deal!”

“Things I never needed to know about Jeon Jeongguk, for four hundred.”

“At least I'm not giving you the gory details~”

~

“Namjoon?” Yoongi asked, one rainy afternoon when the wind was shaking the trees and howling across the roof. “Namjoon, do you ever wonder about what it might be like?”

“What,” he asked, turning his head to look at Yoongi. His skin was warm sugar brown and his dimple made Yoongi's heart skip a beat. “What might be like.”

“...Being an animal. Going feral.” he replied, no matter how stupid it sounded to his own ears. Yoongi thought about it sometimes, going feral. Giving in to the part of his DNA that wanted to be wild, wanted to live like his ancestors would have. His animal ancestors.

“No,” Namjoon replied. “No, I don't... Mm. I don't think going feral is a permanent thing, so I don't think we can be animals, Yoongi. You saw Jeongguk. He was feral when he left. He's not now.”

If anything, Jeongguk was practically docile, letting himself be coddled and teased and playing about with the older boys, only raising his voice when he was truly irritated, and more often than not running to Jimin for protection, since no one would dare harm their token human, as Taehyung called him. But he also never talked about what happened, between leaving them in the forest and coming back to them with Jimin and Taehyung.

“Sometimes I want to,” Yoongi said. “I want to just... Be an animal. _”_

“You are, already,” Namjoon laughed, kissing Yoongi's cheek.

“No,” Yoongi shook his head. “No, but I could be. In a few weeks.”

“What do you mean?”

Yoongi was silent for a moment. He'd done his best to make sure no one knew he was taking medication, a medication that would eventually run out, though he was sure they at least suspected. Hoseok probably knew. But either way, he'd have to start rationing the pills even more soon, and the syringes were for emergencies, when everything had to halt suddenly, whether for health or safety reasons. Like that time in the tent, when he had such limited time and still...

“Have you ever seen a cat in heat, Namjoon?”

“...No,” Namjoon said, and Yoongi chuckled.

“They're animals,” he whispered, and Namjoon was silent, reaching to hold Yoongi's hand and press a kiss to his knuckles, slow and soft and warm.

“You're not an animal, Min Yoongi,” he said, and Yoongi felt his heart squeeze.

“You can't say that, you don't know.”

“Then let me say that I'm not gonna stop... This,” he motioned to the two of them curled up on the wide bed. “Just because you show me your teeth or your claws. I'm not scared. I'm not like you, Yoongi, I don't have the same blood you have but I'm not...” he paused, and reached to push back Yoongi's hair. Yoongi hated how transparent he felt in that moment. Namjoon was searching his face and he must have found something worth staying for, because he smiled that dimpled smile and pressed a kiss to the top of Yoongi's cheek, the bridge of his nose, the chapped skin of his lips. “I'm not gonna leave you just because you can't control your instincts for a few days every couple of months.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

~

_Bang Yongguk is speaking out today, after the murder-suicide of two child hybrids and their foster mother in their home two days ago. The hybrid rights activist is also a heavy hitter in the political field, and his speech this afternoon at the Wildtown border summarized the situation succinctly._

“ _No one has the right to murder anyone else over their DNA. Lee Jaehwan, his husband Jung Taekwoon. Cha Hakyeon, Lee Hongbin. Kwon Boa. Jackson Wang, Amber Liu, Krystal and Jessica Jung. Kim Daeil, Lee Hayi. Kim Himch... Kim Himchan. None of these people had to die. These deaths were the direct result of fear, and the fear has to stop. It's enough. No more dead children. No more burned churches. It's enough.”_

_Yoonguk's long time partner, half-hybrid Kim Himchan, was killed during a peaceful protest last week while saving the lives of two small children. Yongguk has since taken the children into his home, and plans to adopt them._

_~_

It was winter.

It was winter, and Yoongi had never been more grateful to have learned how to light and maintain the stove in his home. Namjoon had all but moved in, since his own home had no heating element without electricity, and their scents were mingling together with the smoke. They'd cut and stacked wood, they'd neatly lined the wall with it, and winter had come. Hoseok had taught them all how to dry and salt meat, they'd filled the empty jars with water, Jimin had helped them find edible greens to store and dry and winter had come. It was too cold now to bother boiling enough water to take a lukewarm bath or even get out of bed. Yoongi and Namjoon had been spending a lot of time in the bed, up in the loft.

“I guess my eyes always give it away,” Namjoon said, his lips on Yoongi's neck. “That's what mom used to say. That I had _wild eyes._ ” He chuckled and Yoongi smiled, kissing his forehead.

“What was she like,” he asked, drifting his fingers over Namjoon's strong side. “Your mom.”

“Mm, she was... In charge,” he laughed and Yoongi pinched him. “She was! She was smart, and strong, and...” he sighed. “But. All the strength in the world isn't gonna save you from cancer, you know?”

“I'm sorry,” Yoongi said, and Namjoon shook his head.

“Don't be. I got a lot of time with her. She was an incredible person, and I love her. I think you would have liked her, too.” Namjoon's lips found Yoongi's cheek. “What was your mom like?”

“I don't really...” remember? Yoongi just remembered his impressions of her, her worn dress in wan winter sunlight, her soft hands, her rounded ears. Her deep, beautiful yellow-green eyes and the roughness of her hair. “She loved me a lot. Even though I was a bad kid.”

“Were you? I should have known,” Namjoon laughed. “You seem like you were a scoundrel.”

“I was _precocious,_ ” Yoongi sniffed. “She and my dad... You remember those riots you were talking about. The ones from like... eight years ago. They died, during those. They went out to a protest and they just... Never came back.”

“Oh, Yoongi.”

“Don't,” Yoongi said, trying not to let his voice be sharp. “It's over. It's over, they're gone, I... Lived in a box for a little while n'then I found Taehyung and the job at the recycling plant so it was okay. It was only nine months and it wasn't... It wasn't that bad. It was mostly summer.”

“Still.”

Namjoon's fingers were smoothing through Yoongi's hair, rubbing gently at the back of his neck. Yoongi knew he should get up and take a bath but the idea was unbearable when he could be rubbing against Namjoon, instead, fingers clenched up in his hair, thigh thrown over his hips.

“Can we not talk about this anymore,” Yoongi asked, speaking into the soft skin of Namjoon's neck, pressing soft kisses where his words fell. “Please.”

“Y. Yeah,” he nodded, and Yoongi sighed in relief as they shifted beneath the blankets. “Okay.”

~

Namjoon couldn't smell it, but he noticed anyway.

He couldn't smell it, not like Hoseok and Taehyung could, but he noticed Yoongi's aggressive stand-offishness and impatience because how could he not? Yoongi knew he _had_ to have noticed by now, that he wasn't behaving like himself, but the syringes were for emergencies and he'd run out of pills and he was going back to the _natural state of things_ or whatever Taehyung had said which meant every couple of months he was going to have a few days where he was an absolute monster and there was nothing to be done about it.

Yoongi just hadn't expected it to be so bad.

He'd miscalculated how dependent he was on that medication. He hadn't realized just how much it effected his every day functioning until Taehyung had to step between him and Jimin, teeth bared and snarling dangerously. He hadn't known until Taehyung dragged him into his home and threw him to the floor and the two of them fought. Hissing, spitting, claws out and there was blood and there were bruises and bite marks and it was Namjoon who finally got between them.

Namjoon, only half african wild dog, only half a hybrid whose species didn't tolerate infighting. Maybe Hoseok would have done the same but Namjoon had gotten there first and he _threw_ Taehyung off of Yoongi, bared his short, sharp teeth and his small, curved claws. Taehyung snarled, curled his lip and left the shelter, left Namjoon alone with Yoongi, bleeding and furious on the floor.

“And _you,_ ” he snarled, jerking around to grab Yoongi by the elbows and pin him to the wood. “You, what the fuck was that, huh? What's your _fucking problem._ ”

“Get _off of me,_ ” Yoongi shrieked, unable to get his hands on Namjoon and he knew, somewhere in his head that he was acting like a fucking animal, he was being ridiculous and awful and violent. He knew that. That didn't stop him from opening his mouth like the idiot he was, being scared like he was, lost in memory like he was. “Get the fuck off me, you fucking mutt, _now!_ ”

If Namjoon hadn't been the person he was, maybe he would have torn Yoongi's throat out. Maybe he would have held him down and fucked the attitude right out of him which, god, sounded so good, he was so hot, so _angry_. But because Namjoon was Namjoon, and Namjoon...

He looked like Yoongi had struck him with a two by four for a moment. God, he looked so _hurt,_ so fucking hurt and Yoongi regretted the words more than anything he'd ever said in his life, he regretted them, oh god he hadn't meant that—

But Namjoon was pushing away and Yoongi stayed on the floor as the door opened and closed and he was left alone with the blood and the bitemarks and the cool relief on his skin where Namjoon's touch had just been.

~

He waited until it was dark.

He waited until it was dark before he crept out of his small home and started down the path. He'd been trapped in the house all day, desperate not to be seen by any of them, struggling to contain his desperate need to fuck, to be angry, to... _To be a fucking awful person,_ he thought miserably as he walked down towards the gate they'd come up to six months ago. If someone said he was crying he'd deny it until he was in his grave and maybe even after that. He walked silently down the mountain, as far as he could make it in the dark, since his vision wasn't as good as a natural cats. It was still winter, and when he found a clearing he hurried to make a shelter: a small, tight cave in a pile of snow. He climbed inside and sealed himself in with the smell of his heat and sweat, unbearably hot despite the bitter cold. God. _God_ he'd called Namjoon a _mutt,_ he'd said that, and the look on Namjoon's face haunted him. Hurt, humiliation, shame, how often must he have been called that when he was a kid, how often was he teased for being not entirely human but not entirely hybrid either? It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair that Yoongi had said that and it was selfish that he was the one out here in a snow-cave, crying until he had the hiccups and sweating like it was the middle of the summer, pulling off his jacket, then his t-shirt, then his jeans. He was so fucking hot, so furious at himself, unable to stop hysterically crying like some kind of over-emotional child and he hated himself. God.

What he wouldn't have given to wipe that expression from his memory. What he wouldn't have given to just be able to make that moment not happen, to make it all not true.

~

“Yoongi! Yoongi, where are you?”

“Min Yoongi!”

“Yoongi?!”

He woke to the sound of his name and unbearable heat under his skin. He felt like he was in an oven, his throat so dry he couldn't talk, his entire body feeling weak and noodle-y. He had to be the color of a strawberry, he had to be, he was so hot, but his gaze rolled down and no, he was pale, he was pale and naked and surrounded by snow and his friends were outside his shelter, shouting his name.

The thought of putting on his clothes was asinine. Even if he could lift his arms, even if he could move through the burning ache in his body (like the flu, or pneumonia) he didn't want them to know where he was. He deserved to sit out here and fucking die of exposure. How could he have said that? _Mutt._

He made a wretched little sound and he heard Hoseok—damn him—moving closer. He pressed his hand over his mouth in an attempt to hide his breathing.

“Yoongi?” he asked, and Yoongi shivered, but did not move. “Yoongi, I know you're here, I can smell you. Come on, you need to come back. Seokjin got a deer this morning, we're gonna make lunch with it n'if you don't come back you're not getting any!” his voice ended in a chirp but Yoongi heard the shake in it and he stayed right where he was.

“Fine, fine. Stay here. Freeze. I'm going back.”

He heard Hoseok walk away and relaxed down onto his clothes, head spinning, and spinning, and spinning.

~

“Yoongi,” Namjoon's voice was soft. “Yoongi, c'mon, you're gonna get hypothermia.”

Yoongi didn't how how it was possible to get hypothermia when he was so hot, but he reached up for Namjoon anyway, made grabby hands like a kid and didn't protest being lifted, dropping his head onto Namjoon's shoulder and clinging to him like some kind of monkey. He was disoriented enough to be only barely aware of what was going on and his core was still blazingly hot, though his arms and legs had cooled and maybe that was why he was worried about hypothermia. Did he even still have fingers?

He did, because they started to hurt when Namjoon laid him out on the floor near his woodstove, the feeling slowly coming back to them as he laid there, whimpering like a kicked kitten. “S'hot,” he complained, trying to roll away and whining when Namjoon forced him to hold still. “Nooo,” he trailed, struggling weakly. “No, s'too hot, m... Hurts, it hurts.”

“What hurts,” Namjoon asked, and Yoongi heard himself sob as he was pulled back into Namjoon's lap, back to chest, skin to skin. “Where does it hurt, Yoongi.”

“Everywhere,” he hiccuped, dropping his head back onto Namjoon's shoulder, feeling like he was made of overcooked noodles, all of his muscles burning as feeling came back into them. They ached and pulled and god, Yoongi had forgotten how fucking awful this was, had forgotten how much it fucking hurt to be in true heat with no way to relieve the burning. True, he could have asked Namjoon, but after—

After...

“No,” he said, shaking his head and making himself dizzy as he struggled to get up off of Namjoon's lap, to throw himself to the floor or something, anything, to get control of himself or the situation. “No, no no.”

“No what,” Namjoon asked, his hands spread on Yoongi's chest and making it very difficult to push away from him. “What's wrong?”

“ _No,_ ” he insisted, and Namjoon lifted him—lifted him, like he was some kind of child—and turned him around so they were chest to chest and Yoongi burned with shame, looking away so he didn't have to face Namjoon. _Mutt._ “I s... Said those things n'you... You shouldn't, but it, I.”

“Hey,” Namjoon said. “Hey. Are you okay?”

“ _No,_ ” he said, squirming, hating how everything hurt, everything was on fire and the mess between his legs was surely all over Namjoon's lap now, his biology having no regard for his emotional distress as he sat there perched in Namjoon's lap and wishing he was dead. “No, it hurts, I'm an asshole, I just—”

“Taehyung told me,” Namjoon said gently and his lips were like a cool breeze on Yoongi's cheek. “That if we have sex, you'll feel better.”

“No,” Yoongi shook his head violently. “No no no I said those things, I said, no, you can't, you _can't._ ”

“Then, do you want me to go get Taehyung?” Namjoon asked, and Yoongi felt himself starting to get truly hysterical, shaking his head, then nodding, then shaking again, clinging to Namjoon's shoulders because the thought of having sex was amazing but the idea of with someone _other_ than Namjoon was just intolerable. Yoongi wanted to be with _him,_ wanted to be _his._ Had since that first night in the truck when he slept splayed on Namjoon's chest and woken the next morning to look at his dimples in the sunlight filtering in through the windows. _Great mating material,_ his body had thought, and his brain agreed, but he'd ruined that by being an asshole. “Come on, Yoongi,” Namjoon said, and his voice was so tired. “Let me help you. Please? I want to help you.”

“I'm an asshole,” Yoongi said, and Namjoon fucking laughed at him, kissed his cheek and held him tighter even as Yoongi squirmed. “Don't _laugh—”_

“I'm not laughing at you,” Namjoon promised and his lips kissed over Yoongi's neck and ear, soft and fat and chapped and perfect. “I'm not laughing at you, Taehyung told me it hurts, so let me help. Come on, Yoongi. I know it's hard, I know it hurts, but let me help you. Please?”

Yoongi had to wonder just how much Taehyung had told Namjoon about all of this, but he'd have to ponder it later because honestly all he could do was nod and cry, because Namjoon didn't hate him even though he should because he was awful, as a person and a potential mate. Namjoon didn't hate him, but trailed his hands down Yoongi's sides to hold his narrow waist and lift him up onto his knees, reached between his legs to cup his small cock in his palm and reach beneath to rub his fingers against the wet heat there, just feeling. It was enough to make Yoongi shake, hands clutching desperately to Namjoon's shoulders.

Taehyung must have told Namjoon all of it. The anatomy and physiology of a _felidae_ hybrid and how strange they were but at least Yoongi, unlike Taehyung, didn't have barbs. Taehyung was one of the (un)lucky few with completely male biology, while Yoongi had an even mix of both; it explained why his heats were so awful, anyway. Between his natural behavioral aggression and his demanding physiological needs, he was an asshole when he was in heat. Even Taehyung, with all that extra testosterone, wasn't as bad as Yoongi was. Yoongi was an animal during heats. Taehyung just. Liked to fuck a little more than usual.

Yoongi made a soft sound when Namjoon's fingers, two of them, slid into his body and the press of his palm was enough to make Yoongi's eyes roll back in his head. He gave himself a moment before he pushed against Namjoon's hand, breathless and flushed with embarrassment and arousal in equal parts. Namjoon was sitting beneath him, his eyes dark, and Yoongi wanted to sink into the floor but settled for spreading his legs until he was on top of Namjoon's lap and rocking against his belly as well as his hand. Namjoon was still wearing jeans and he could feel the bulge of his erection and wildly wondered why he wasn't getting fucked with _that,_ instead of Namjoon's narrow, nimble fingers.

One hand tried to fumble with Namjoon's button and zip, but Namjoon's hand wrapped around his wrist and shifted to thread their fingers together. “Later,” Namjoon promised. “Later, Yoongi, this is about you right now, okay? Later.”

_This is about you._

Yoongi's entire back spasmed and he dropped his weight. Threw himself forward and fisted his hands in Namjoon's hair, panted against his cheek. Mewling and _grinding_ down onto his hand until his hips were jerking and he was coming, oh _fuck,_ Namjoon crooked his fingers forward and Yoongi didn't have a chance in hell. Not one single chance.

His entire body heaved up, forward and down. He pressed himself to Namjoon's chest, practically sobbing like some... Some teenager _, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, I didn't mean it Namjoon, I didn't mean it please I'm sorry_ and Namjoon just withdrew his fingers, wiped them on his own jeans and ran his hands down Yoongi's trembling back, pulled him in close.

“I know you didn't,” he said. His kisses on Yoongi's trembling lips tasted like forgiveness and Yoongi wanted to sink into Namjoon, wanted to bury himself in his being and never come out again. He was still so hot but the burn had subsided and for a few minutes... He just wanted to be there with Namjoon, breathing in the dim firelight, straddling his lap and thinking about just how fucked he was, and just how much he really, really, _really_ didn't care.

~

_Two hybrid minors are in emergency care tonight. Choi Minki and Kim, JR, Jonghyun have been missing for nearly two weeks and were found last night just outside Seoul Wildtown. When Jang Woohyuk, a human living near the Wildtown line, was unable to reach anyone inside, he brought them to a local hospital, and has insisted on staying through the term of their care. He says wants to bring them home when they've recovered._

“ _You're being called a hero.”_

“ _Don't call me a hero for being a decent person. It's what anyone would have done.”_

~

Namjoon must have moved them up into the loft, carried Yoongi on his shoulder or something, because Yoongi woke up in the bed and he _definitely_ remembered falling asleep down on the floor. Everything was... Muffled, and as he lifted his head to peek outside he could see that it was snowing again, white blanketing everything. He groaned and put his head back on the folded blanket that had been acting as his pillow for the last... However long they'd been here.

“Yoongi?”

Taehyung's voice was not something he expected to hear and he jerked up in alarm, throwing himself to the edge of the loft and peering down through squinted eyes. “Where's Namjoon,” he asked, breathless.

“He went out with Hoseok and Jimin,” Taehyung replied. “Something about ice fishing? I don't know. He asked me to stay with you.”

“Why?”

“Because your heat's not over and he can't smell how desperate you are, you whore.”

“Shut up,”

“Nope.” Yoongi struggled down the ladder, glad that Namjoon had at least thought to dress him in a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. Taehyung was sitting on the bench couch, reading one of the books he'd (probably) brought with him, and he looked over at Yoongi as he landed on the ground, brow furrowed. “You look terrible.”

“Thanks,” Yoongi replied, moving to the bathroom and getting a good view of just how bad he looked: eyes swollen, cheeks flushed, lips bitten and bruised. He splashed at his face with cold water (that was all that came up through the pipes, ever, cold water. It was what made taking a bath in the winter so not worth it at all.) and went to sit next to Taehyung, feeling... Well. Physically better, and emotionally worse, than he had the night before.

“What happened?”

“I don't even know,” Yoongi admitted, rubbing at his face and raking his nails through his hair. “I... Said something awful and he left, then I left, and he came to get me, we came back, we had sex, and now he's gone.”

“He's not _gone,_ ” Taehyung admonished. “He went out ice fishing with Jimin and Hoseok. He'll come back.”

“He's basically gone,” Yoongi said, hugging his legs. Namjoon hadn't woken him up when he left, hadn't left a note... Taehyung was there, but that didn't really mean anything. He could have come in on his own. “Not that I blame him.”

“God, you're fucking ridiculous, you know that?” Taehyung rolled his eyes. “All these fucking dramatics. Just bend over and let him _fuck you_ already, it's not that hard!”

“It's not that _simple_ either and you fucking know it,” Yoongi snarled and Taehyung had the decency to look at least a little cowed, glancing to the floor.

“That's not what I meant.”

“I know.”

The two of them sat in tense silence until Taehyung sighed, pushing back his hair and setting aside his book. “Look,” he said. “Look. I know... I know it's hard, okay? Being out here, being... It's fucking hard, okay, but it's better than what was happening when we left the city. It sucks, not having a fucking CVS to get medication at, it sucks not having a way to get around, not having electricity, not... A lot of this fucking blows, okay? But Namjoon being here with you isn't one of those things, and it's not a fucking accident, either. He likes you, okay? Who the fuck knows why but he likes you a lot, and you're making it really fucking hard for him for no goddamned reason. You're making it hard for _you._ Not everyone you meet is out to fuck you over, Min Yoongi. Not everyone is trying to fucking hurt you.”

“I know he's not,” Yoongi said, pressing his face into his hands. “I know he's not. I like him a lot. I just—I said something mean and he, and he came to get me anyway, right, he came and fucking dragged me out of the snow and what, what kind of fucking _asshole_ does that, huh? Who the fuck comes and gets some—some piece of shit who called them a _mutt_ and brings them home and, and _takes care_ of them, and—and—”

“You know,” Taehyung said. “I mean I know you hate this being in heat thing, it really does suck, but it also makes you a whole lot more honest than you usually are.”

“I hate it,” Yoongi hiccuped. “No fucking dignity at all.”

“I don't think you need it,” Taehyung hummed, reaching to pull Yoongi into his lap. Yoongi could feel the heat of his erection and _almost_ hated him for it. Almost. “What you do need. Is to have sex, take a nap, and have a bath with Namjoon when he gets home, okay? You love baths. It'll help you both feel a lot better.”

“Yeah,” Yoongi nodded, rubbed at his eyes. “Yeah, you're right.”

~

The warmth of Taehyung's body was familiar and when Yoongi finished, he laid down on the couch and closed his eyes, determined to get up and fill the tub as soon as he could walk properly. He'd forgotten how brutal the barbs could be. ( _You must be the one receiving. Poor Jimin's ass,_ he'd teased when he sank down on Taehyung's erection, only to get a swift smack on the ass for his sass.) But when he woke up again it was Namjoon moving around, filling their pot with cold water, setting it on the stove until it was seaming, and dumping it into the tub, repeating the process.

“Namjoon,” he said, and the younger man turned to look at him. God, he was beautiful. So beautiful. His hair had grown out, the silver giving way to black. He was leaner than he had been before the start of winter, his skin paler with the lack of sun and still he was the most amazing, stunning person Yoongi had ever set his eyes on.

“Hey,” he said, his voice deep and warm. “You're awake. Feeling okay?”

“Mmm,” he nodded. “S'almost over. M'sorry.”

“Well. That's good, right? I don't think I can take too much more of it,” Namjoon said and Yoongi sat up, heart racing, hands clenching tight in the blanket. “It's hard, Yoongi.”

“I,” he started, hating himself. “I know. I'm sorry. I'm _sorry._ ”

“This isn't about being sorry,” Namjoon said, and Yoongi watched him come closer, watched him kneel beside the couch and look up at him. “I know you're sorry. But being sorry doesn't make it better, okay? Being sorry doesn't...”

“I know,” Yoongi whispered, vision blurring treacherously. “I shouldn't have said that. It was wrong, and, and mean, and cruel and insensitive and.” He reached up to rub at his eyes and ended up just putting his face in his hands to hide the fact that he was just going to keep crying. He was just going to keep fucking _crying._ Shit, he hated being in heat. Thank god it was almost over. He was still too hot but it was almost over. “And you didn't deserve it.”

“No, I didn't,” Namjoon replied, and Yoongi pressed his fingers into his eyes. “But it's not... Yoongi, I'm not _mad._ ”

“Just disappointed?” Yoongi asked, choking on it as he tried to laugh it off.

“Worried,” Namjoon said. “I didn't know it was this bad? I mean, Taehyung told me, but he didn't tell me how bad it was.”

“What, heat?” Yoongi asked, still digging his fingertips into his eyes and wishing he could just press them all the way back into his skull.

“Your trauma.”

Yoongi stiffened and swallowed hard. Taehyung only knew about what happened in those nine months he'd been homeless because he'd been there for some of it. He only knew because Yoongi'd had a breakdown in the alley where he'd been sleeping, after some hulking human had—

had—

“I don't want to talk about it,” he said, the words coming out fast as he shook his head. “I don't want to talk about it.”

“Yoongi, we need to talk about it.”

“No, no we don't, we can just—just—”

“Just what, ignore it? If you're going to be dealing with this every couple of months we need to talk about what happened, what's going to happen. I'm not going to let you get nasty with me just because you're locked up in your brain with whatever awful fucking memory makes you do shit like that. I'm not gonna sit here and let you abuse me then use your heat as an excuse.”

Namjoon shoved up from where he was kneeling and raked his beautiful hands through his hair. “I'm gonna go see Seokjin and Hoseok. You... Get your shit together. If we're... If we're not gonna talk about this, Yoongi, I don't want to be here.”

There it was, the ultimatum Yoongi had known was coming, as Namjoon walked out the door and into the winter. The water on the stove was steaming and after a great deal of effort, like moving through a dream, Yoongi managed to dump it into the tub and climbed into the lukewarm water, washing away as much of the filth as he possibly could.

~

“ ~~When I was sixteen~~... When I was sixteen. It was summer, still, and I'd been spending time with Taehyung, since he had a family and they didn't mind feeding me. I tried really hard not to let them find out, you know? About what happened. Almost everyone thought I was still living in my parents apartment, or that someone else was taking care of me, or whatever. I didn't want to bother anyone. I didn't want to bother anyone and if I stayed just outside the Wildtown lines, most of the people who walked by were humans, you know and they gave me money... I was ~~little.~~ Littler, then. Pathetic, honestly, but either way I just.

It doesn't matter.

Anyway this one night, it was hot and I was out late, since it was light out for so long and it was a Friday, all the drunks give away their money you know? But this one guy... He was drunk, he cornered me, I was scared and he was mean and. And he didn't _fuck_ me, he didn't, so it wasn't, he didn't rape me. I enjoyed it, he made me cum, it just... It just felt filthy, you know? I felt... Taehyung came to get me after I called his house, I'm lucky his mom even picked up the phone. I went into heat that night, Taehyung gave me a shot the next morning, so I didn't have to deal with it for long.

But I just kept thinking about how it wasn't rape, he didn't rape me, I came, I came _twice,_ and it couldn't be... But it was, wasn't it. He raped me. When I was sixteen some drunk human pinned me to a wall and called me _kitten_ and raped me.”

It was cowardly to give Namjoon a piece of paper with it all written down in his tiny, meticulous writing. It was cowardly to write it instead of say it, but Yoongi was a bit of a coward and even as Namjoon took the folded paper from him, he retreated up into the loft and hid against the far wall, out of sight. It was getting warmer; the loft was almost too hot with the heat from the stove and he'd cracked the tiny porthole window to get some fresh, moving air. His heat was subsiding, finally, thank god, but he was still a bit too warm. Just enough to be uncomfortable.

“Yoongi,” Namjoon said, his voice thick. “Yoongi. Can I come up?”

“...yeah,” he said, still laying against the wall and when Namjoon climbed over the edge, past the little rail that guaranteed neither of them would go rolling off in the middle of the night, Yoongi wasn't sure of how to feel. Namjoon looked upset and he had every right to be. Yoongi figured, _this is the part where he tells me he never wants to see me again._

But he didn't.

Namjoon sat in the middle of the bed and looked at Yoongi while Yoongi looked back at him until he was so nervous he was shaking. “What,” he asked, and Namjoon offered out one hand.

“Come here, please?”

“Why,” he asked, even as he slipped his hand into Namjoons, let himself be pulled into his lap, wearing only a t-shirt and underwear. Namjoon tenderly touched his face, neck and chest and Yoongi hated it. “I'm not _breakable,_ ” he hissed, annoyed, but Namjoon silenced him with a slow, soft kiss.

“You're not,” he agreed, laying back and bringing Yoongi with him. “You're precious. Thank you for telling me. For trusting me.”

“Shut up,” Yoongi deflected, even as his ears twitched back and forth and he _felt_ his face turning red. He looked down and bit his lip. “I didn't mean that.”

“I gathered,” Namjoon laughed and ran his hands down Yoongi's back to rub at the base of his back, where his tail extended out. “But Yoongi. Yoongi, I have a question.”

“Mm,” he replied, sighing softly.

“Will you mate with me?”

“What kind of stupid question is that,” he asked, stretching to tuck his face into Namjoon's neck where his scent lingered, warm and safe and something like home. He thought about Namjoon's acceptance of his flaws, the gentleness with which he was holding him at that moment, after learning about the most awful, disgusting thing that had ever happened to him. He thought about Namjoon's heartbeat, steady against his own. _Great mating material,_ he'd thought, as they laid in the back of the truck. “Of course.”

~

_Good news today. Recently passed legislation to require the registration and licensing of Hybrids was repealed today after being declared unconstitutional. Han Sanghyuk, canidae hybrid and representative of the Seoul Wildtown community, said that this was a victory for both sides of this conflict._

“ _It's not about licensing or registration, it's about our rights as citizens,” he said in an interview this afternoon. “Hybrids as just as much citizens of this city as humans and half-hybrids are. The second we start dividing each other up into categories, the sooner aggression and hate grows. There's a lot of fight left, there always is, but this is an important first step in being able to make things right again. There's no reason we can't coexist peacefully and take care of one another.”_

_Han recently adopted Lee Jinhwan, son of the late Lee Jaehwan and Jung Taekwoon, who were close friends of his family, in addition to a human child orphaned during a riot three months ago. Rather than a gesture of goodwill towards the human community, Han says it is simply the right thing to do._

“ _As someone who grew up alone, without a family, I think it's important to have a family, whether it's adopted or not. It's important to have a pack.”_

~

It was summer.

It was summer and in the clearing near the river Yoongi straddled Namjoon's hips and fucked down onto him, hands on his brown belly, eyes half-lidded with his lips pulled into a grin. He thought about trying to be quiet, but why? Let the rest of the pack hear. Let Jeongguk blush and Hoseok crow and Taehyung snicker. Let Seokjin roll his eyes and Jimin blink in confusion, who cared. They were a mated pair, they could fuck wherever and however they wanted and they did.

 _Can you get pregnant,_ Namjoon had asked when his heat first started itching under his skin in the early summer sunlight coming in through the conifer trees and Yoongi had paused, leaned back into him and shaken his hair out of his eyes.

 _I don't know,_ he'd replied, honestly. _I've never tried._

_Wanna try?_

Yoongi had hesitated. Turned to look up at Namjoon who was waggling his eyebrows like some kind of cartoon character and he'd laughed, laughed until his side hurt and Namjoon was squawking protests and bringing him down to the ground and attempting to kiss him into silence but all it did was turn the laughs into moans, though it left the smile on his face.

 _Namjoon,_ he'd said, his fingers fisted in Namjoon's hair as the bark of the oak tree bit into his back, tail swatting. _Namjoon, I love you._ If Namjoon thrusted harder, if his lips were more gentle and his heartbeat picked up, Yoongi said nothing. He just held on to his hair and kissed his mouth, _I love you, I love you_ and Namjoon, Namjoon braced his arm on the tree and put one hand on the small of Yoongi's back to pull him closer, erection to belly, and breathe into his ear,

_Love you more._

 


End file.
